Education can eradicate poverty

I read an article in The Jakarta Post on July 26, 2000, which states that Bazis is collecting more donations and plans to use the funds to eradicate poverty and improve the quality of human resources by allocating Rp 5.5 billion in scholarships for children of poor families in the form of packages comprising shoes, books and uniforms.

If our schools do not expect their students to wear a uniform or specific shoes then part of that Rp 5.5 billion could be used to train teachers (it would be ideal if our teachers could be sent overseas to countries like the UK to learn their teaching methods), and build more good-quality schools.

I feel this would be more effective to help realize our desire to eradicate poverty and improve the quality (especially mentally) of human resources of all Indonesians (not only the poor), since -- according to research done by one school -- the quality of a school is set by high-quality teachers and correct teaching-learning methods, not by a completeness of its physical facilities nor by the shoes or uniforms its students wear.

I guess this is the time for our minister of education to establish what is essential to improve our human resources. Then, in the next 20 years we will have a much better generation.

DIAN KARTIKA SARI

Jakarta